A review of each season’s Most Valuable Player voting typically reveals the best players in the game at that particular time. Although each player’s team’s regular season success is a factor, the vote tally usually has a strong correlation to statistical leader boards.
Those players have almost always earned this recognition through quantifiable performance from RBI, HRs and batting average to wins and saves. Individual team MVP selections often mirror the same approach.
However, determining which players are most indispensable can often entail a much more complex equation. In fact, it usually involves a subjective consideration of many different variables such as the team’s makeup, style, flexibility, and depth—along with the player’s individual performance, position, and role.
Simply put, it’s a matter of assessing which players have the greatest impact on and would be missed the most by their team?
All the players that follow surely have impressive measurable results, but their value to their team includes much more. Here are Major League Baseball’s 10 most indispensable players: